Hi again everyone. just to make things clear - Me - full time student on social work course, receiving NHS bursary and student loans OH - made redundant in Jan, received contributions based JSA for six months, then nothing. Was awarded Housing Benefit from January. We have a 4 year old son. My OH was awarded housing benefit in January when he was made redundant. They had all the details of every penny of income I get from student loans and bursary, it's the only income we have. In November, they asked for all the student loans details again and the same documentation was supplied, our income and circumstances haven't changed. OH didn't realised that he hadn't heard anything so rang them yesterday. Got a call back this morning to say that they have decided that we are no longer eligible? Our income and circumstances haven't changed since January. The woman said that apparantly we have enough to live on so we owe them ￡700 from when the claim was suspended in November? Can they do that? If we are eligible and are awarded HB, how can they suddenly say that we are no longer eligible when our circumstances haven't changed?

Your other half should have re-applied for JSA Income Based when his Contribution based one stopped. Contribution based only lasts for 6 months. If they decide he is entitled to this he may also be entitled to Housing Benefit as well. I was told when I was getting it that the council makes it decision along the lines of if you get JSA or not.

He applied for the income based JSA but was told that as my loans bring in ￡100 a week he wasn't entitled to it.

Sorry then can't be any help. I have applied for housing benefit on its own bringing in a lot more that ￡100 a week and received some of it.

That's not quite correct. It's true to say that if someone gets income based JSA, they will usually also be entitled to housing benefit, but hb does not depend exclusively on jsa. OP, it would appear that your claim was incorrectly assessed when you first applied in January. Do you still have your original award letters from this date, and you current award letters? It's very difficult to guess what the problem is without knowing what income has been used in your claim, but it would appear (due to the fact that your claim has been nilled back to the start) that your claim may have been incorrectly calculated in the frst place. My advice would be to find out exactly why the overpayment has occurred. You need to request a statement of reasons from the LA in writing - as soon as possible. They will then write back to tell you why the overpayment occurred. If the error is on the part of the LA, and crucially if you could not reasonably have been expected to realise that there was an error and you were being overpaid then the overpayment becomes unrecoverable. So for example, if the LA calculated your claim based on your declared income but you had a rise in tax credits which you did not tell the LA about, the overpayment caused would be recoverable (ie you would have to pay it back) as it would be your error. Or for example, if you supplied all your details to the LA and they made a mistake and input your income incorrectly or added someone extra to the household accidentally, and the mistake was obvious from your award letters, they would say that you could reasonably have been expected to check your award letters and query the innaccuracy, so the overpayment would still be recoverable. However, if they took all your details and applied the wrong disregards to your student loan or bursary, for example, or if the error made would not have been able to be identified from your award letters, then as the mistake is wholly theirs and you could not reasonably have known, the overpayment cannot be recovered. Once you know why the OP has occurred, if you beleive that the error is wholly the LA's and you could not have known it had occurred, you need to appeal - but you only have 30 days from the date you were notified of the OP, so be quick. The CAB could help you with the appeals process. Good luck!

Thanks so much for that, it'c very useful. My OH has kept everything they have ever sent from January so we have everything. Thanks again and I'll keep you posted x